Posts Tagged With: night photography

Added camera’s past

Just a quick heads up… I have updated my camera’s page. It has a list of cameras that I am using, or have used in the past, I guess you can call them reviews, but I like to just call it giving you my opinion. I will add more info as time goes on so it’s a good time to check back every now and then to see if anything has changed!

Todays iCandy – The Twisted Tree

I found this tree in the gardens surrounding Government house in Sydney. I just loved the way it was all ‘twisted’… It seemed to have grown into two trees and was huge… the sun was just poking through the leaves but the canopy on this tree was thick… making it the perfect shady spot on a warm day!

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make your images POP…

There is plenty of cool software and plugins out there, so many that you would need to stop feeding your children if you were going to buy them all… I was asked the question, “If you could only have one plugin for photoshop, what would it be?” – and this is a tough question, I have so many that I love… but in the end I decided on Topaz Adjust… I wrote an article on HDR One explaining exactly why I love this plugin so much and I even show you how I use it! CLICK HERE to go to the HDR One magazine and have a little peeky boo at the article!

If you want to get Topaz CLICK HERE and you will be re-directed to their site… enjoy!

Today’s iCandy – Sydney Opera House

This is the image I ended up with after I used Topaz Adjust… if you want to see how I did it, then you better click on the link above to the HDR One magazine and check it out!

Click on the photo to order yourself a print or to download (please see licensing for the rules!)

The X-E1 delivers

Now that I have Photoshop CS6 and I can use camera RAW to process the Fuji X-E1’s .RAF Raw files, I decided to test out the results. I headed out to shoot the sunset and with the Fuji firmly planted on the tripod, I had the 18mm f2 mounted on the front of it and I was ready to take my photo, and decided to use HDR for this one, I used the EV dial to take my 3 exposures, -2, 0, +2.

The 3 exposures in RAW (click on this image for a closer look)

I then took the 3 exposures and imported them into Photomatix (the software I use to create HDR images) and created my tonemapped version. I then did a little crop in photoshop and today’s iCandy is the end result. I am pretty pleased with the image quality of the Fuji and having full RAW file control in photoshop means I can seriously use this camera for landscape shooting.

Today’s iCandy – Bridge Glow

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Diamonds in your own back yard

As the old saying goes… ‘There are diamonds in your own back yard’, it certainly applies to photography. Whilst I am always excited to find a new ‘hot spot’ for photography, I like the challenge of shooting something or some where I have shot many times before, but try to capture in a different way. I had a couple of concepts in my head that I wanted to try, one was shooting the Opera House from the northern side of Sydney Harbour, but rather than use a wide angle lens, get in nice and tight with my zoom. Another of my planned shots was to shoot Luna Park at night, I wanted to get nice and close and include every last detail… I wanted every light bulb to shine… I wanted you to feel like you were a child standing at the entry looking up in oar. Here are the results…

Today’s iCandy – Watching the Opera + Luna Smile

So today you get not one… but two images… enjoy!

Click on the photo to order yourself a print or to download (please see licensing for the rules!)

Click on the photo to order yourself a print or to download (please see licensing for the rules!)

Forget the Fuji raw converter…

I think I already had said somewhere here that the Fuji raw converter is about as much fun as giving yourself root canal therapy! During the past week I upgraded to Adobe Photoshop CS6 and that includes the new Camera Raw that handles the Fuji .RAF raw files with ease… Now that I have this ability I will be shooting in RAW on the X-E1 and will run some tests over the coming weeks… but it is good news for those of you considering one of these as this was the ONLY thing that would stop me from seriously shooting with this camera, I will now be using it a whole lot more. I am still waiting for an answer from the developers of my favourite HDR software ‘Photomatix’ to see when it will support RAW files from the X-E1, it will only be a matter of time as it already supports several other Fuji camera’s raw files.

Today’s iCandy – Redline Opera

I like working with car lights to see what creative things happen. Under the bridge this section is single lane, so all you have to do is wait until the cars travelling away from you get the green light and you will get red light trails, the headlights of the waiting cars from the other direction added a nice lighting on the railing to my left…

Click on the photo to order yourself a print or to download (please see licensing for the rules!)

Welcome to 2013…

Sydney Australia is one of the first cities to celebrate NYE.. so there is a chance you are still counting down the hours. Myself and a buddy wanted to try some light painting to create a NYE photo… it was quite a laugh in the end. We decided to use sparklers rather than a static light source, and both of us had never really had any experience with light painting… We headed to a prominent harbour side location, with a plan of having the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House in the background of our image.

We practiced first with a torch and then decided ‘what the heck’ and decided to take the plunge and start using the sparklers, we had 60 of them… how hard could it be?

Well, it was harder than we thought… it was windy, so getting the sparklers to light was our first challenge. We had to work out where to stand, how big to write, how slow to move etc etc… it was becoming a real mission! In the end, we both ended up with an image we were happy with… here is mine… HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy New Year

The Outtakes

As I said in the beginning… there was a lot of learning (screw ups!)…

Rene, had bought these other cool sparklers that were the actual numbers… we thought we would give them a go..

firstly, we needed to work out how to mount them, as we would not be able to hold them still enough for a clean shot, luckily, Rene is like MacGyver and has a multi-tool and gaffa tape at hand… so we tape them onto a piece of metal bar that Rene had in his car … that seemed to be easy enough.

Setting up the shot

Next we had to get the placement right… this looked good… we would use photoshop to remove the tripod and stuff later…

Adjusting the composition

All that was left to do was to light each number and capture our masterpiece… lighting them was easier said than done, so we decided we would light one at a time, and blend them in photoshop later… so here goes…

WTF??

As you can see… this was an EPIC fail… can you see the number 2? … me neither… at least we had some fun and learnt something about light painting with sparklers along the way…

Have a safe New Years eve and I wish that 2013 brings you much joy and success… thanks again for being a part of my photojourney in 2012, I personally love hearing of how I have helped and inspired you to get out and create your own photojourney and hope you can join me again in 2013!

My 2012 Photojourney

Here is a selection of my Photojourney for 2012. It was a year of learning, up until this year I never had worked out what kind of photography I loved, I now have discovered Landscape and what I call HDR Plus – The music is from around 1995 when I was in a band called ‘Sagacity’, I wrote the music and played guitar on the track, My cousin Darrin wrote and sang lyrics, his brother Matt played Bass and and another cousin, Brad played drums… a bit of a family affair! It was a lot of fun so I thought I would share it along with my photojourney for 2012… enjoy!

A commonly asked question

One of the most common questions I have been asked is “what lens should I get next?”, and there is no easy answer… it’s funny how once I had a couple of lenses people think I can answer these questions… why do you think I have all the lenses I possibly can get my hands on… because even I am never sure what lens I will use next, so it’s best just to have them all! With Christmas just around the corner maybe it’s time to treat yourself… you can check out my PAGE HERE where I show you my kit and over you some advice on choosing your next lens, Merry Christmas!

Free Facebook Cover Images

Just a reminder if you head over to my Facebook Page you will find an album I am slowly filling up with Facebook covers you can use (I try to add a new one each day). I pick one of my favourite quotes and put it on one of my images, then format it to fit the Facebook cover so all you have to do is right click the image and save it to your computer, then you can upload it as your cover image.

Today’s iCandy – Bird Cage Alley

I took this one after the last on3legs photowalk in 2012. Myself and Rob Potter from Photography Hot Spots were wandering back to the car, and I guess, being the photographers we are, we always see photo opportunities… I had noticed that Rob had stopped about 20 metres behind me, and he was staring down an alley with an excited grin on his face… of course, I had to go back and see what it was…

Click on the photo to order yourself a print or to download (please see licensing for the rules!)

Eliminating reflections

I was invited to a dinner at a restaraunt called 360, for those of you unfamiliar with Sydney, that is the revolving restaraunt at the top of Sydney Tower. It stands 309 metres (1014ft) high above the Sydney CBD making for a ‘birds eye view’ of the city. Being the keen photographer that I am I took my DSLR to dinner… you never know, if conversation gets boring I can excuse myself and indulge in some image creation…

I did get the opportunity to grab some pics, and the first issue I faced was reflections, I thought if I get my lens really close to the glass, I would eliminate it… no such luck, what was worse, was these windows are double glazed, and the reflection from the outer pane of glass is destroying my image! I really didn’t get anything I was happy with.

I was planing a trip to the Gold Coast, and whilst the Sydney Tower is tall, the Q1 tower on the Gold Coast is taller! I wanted to get a shot from the top of Q1 and I knew they would probably have similar construction so I decided to start working out how to eliminate the reflections. Below I share with you how I shoot through glass.

The Gold Coast comes to life at night…

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To avoid reflections when shooting through double glazed glass you need three items

Rubber Lens Hood

1. A rubber Lens Hood. They come in all shapes and sizes, and I found with my wide angle lens it was visible in the corners so make sure you get a hood that will suit your lens. There are UWA rubber lens hoods. The hood allows you to press/rest your lens up against the glass to eliminate any reflections on the inner glass panel, you will still have reflections on the second ‘double’ panel of glass in the case of double glazing that a lot of these towers have unless you use item number two!

Dark Cloth

2. A dark Cloth. To get rid of the reflections on the outer pane of glass, you need to hang a dark cloth on the window, and then shoot through it. Use a 30cm x 30cm cloth, cut an X in the middle of it big enough for your lens to fit through, I suggest make it a snug fit, so it wont slip over your lens hood, this way it all stays together nicely during your shoot.

Suction Cups with Hooks

3. Suction cups (unless you are an octopus then you won’t need the suction cups). The final piece of the puzzle, use the suction cups to mount your dark cloth to the glass.

Basically, you are creating a dark room for the end of your lens, I also cleaned the glass where I was shooting to get rid of the fingerprints left by previous admirers. So there you have it… a nice cheap and effective solution to shooting through glass.

788 images later…

After a week away I am pleased to be home, there is nothing like my own bed! I have downloaded all my images from my memory cards to my Mac and surprised to see that I had taken 788 images! This will keep me busy for a little while… A lot of them are several of the same composition as I find with sunrise and sunset the colour keeps changing so I just keep shooting, that way I am going to have something I am happy with. A couple of locations I was really excited about shooting was a church in Armidale and the Gold Coast from Q1 skypoint observatory, both of which have turned out to be fantastic shots that I will share with you later.

the daily pic – Night Shift

‘Night Shift’ – The first day I was on the Gold Coast the weather wasn’t very good. I always prefer a few clouds in my shots as it creates drama and interesting shapes and textures, especially at night. The gold coast makes this “Shift” as the sun goes down and the people leave the beach to enjoy the night life… enjoy!

(Click on the photo to order yourself a print or to download (please see licensing for the rules!)